Americans Trust in Federal Government Sinks to New Depths(news.gallup.com)
40 pointsby giuliomagnifico4 hours ago7 comments
  • ARandomerDude4 hours ago
    Since our federal government's raison d'être is to benefit Israel at the expense of the US and the world, it's no surprise that Americans no longer trust it.
  • Molitor59013 hours ago
    "Public trust in government has been trending downward for the past two decades, but this year brings steeper declines in some measures."

    I'm surprised there was ever much trust in government, and looking at the graph.. surprised to see it was 83% in 1974, during the Nixon administration, and it's just been going down ever since.

    • halJordan20 minutes ago
      The government was passing constitutional amendments and major legislation like the Civil Rights Act back then. I'm surprised you're surprised (I'm not actually, citizens being wholly ignorant of even recent history has been entirely normalized and not even shamed anymore).
    • UncleOxidant3 hours ago
      The federal government used to be able to do things. In 74 it was only 5 years after NASA landed men on the moon, and there were continuing launches right until about then. Watergate started the trend of distrust.
  • silverFork4 hours ago
    legislative branch is the lowest at 28% approval and everything else is at 33% while judicial seats at 45%. Everything is about more than a half lower than beginning of millennium.

    Is a surprise? Nope, not to me as a mere observer. Judicial sounded a bit too high to me after citizen united. Don't worry will eventually match the rest.

    • CoastalCoder4 hours ago
      One thing I'm curious about re: Citizens United...

      Do people have a problem with the validity of the legal reasoning, or with the court's wisdom in their final decision?

      IANAL by a long shot. But I wonder if the constitution is pretty clear on the matter, but flawed in the sense that it sets us up for the current situation.

      • pyrale3 hours ago
        > Do people have a problem with the validity of the legal reasoning, or with the court's wisdom in their final decision?

        Not familiar with the case, but Citizen United was a 5-4 decision, so the dissenting opinions are probably the first place you should look at if you're looking for issues with the legal reasoning and/or the court's wisdom.

        • atmavatar3 hours ago
          Not to mention, we now know that many on the court (and particularly those among the majority) have been accepting undisclosed gifts for years as well as their spouses accepting significant business dealings with those who at the time or subsequently had dealings with the court.
      • ballmerpoint3 hours ago
        Here’s an opinion poll from 2025:

        https://issueone.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Issue-One-Yo...

        Take with a grain of salt, of course; N is about 1000 and they were contracted by what I assume was a PAC trying to pass an anti-corruption state issue in Montana.

        But that seems to be a significant, bipartisan moiety that disagree with parts of SCOTUS’ opinion.

      • happytoexplain3 hours ago
        "People", in the broad sense implied by a national poll, don't make that distinction (though if you asked them directly, they would have an opinion). They care about outcomes, not rationale. That actually makes perfect sense - that should be a typical person's point of view.

        Of course this is orthogonal to the tribalism overlay that distorts everybody's perceptions, but I'm speaking about the foundation underneath that.

      • sandworm1013 hours ago
        The decision was legally sound. Most every supreme court decision is, even those that have been overruled. People forget that for a case to reach the supremes there has to be sound legal argument on multiple sides. Their decisions are therefore rather arbitrary but that is OK. The legislature can bypass any scotus decision through new laws or even a constitutional amendment. Our present difficulty is that the legislative branch has all but abandoned that role.
      • silverFork3 hours ago
        Obviously there is a problem. It has upgraded corporations to speak as people and allowed them to spend as much as money as they want for elections and it has distorted the already distorted electioneering process to a farce.

        Who are people ? the AstroTurfed versions that claimed to be people that got the thing through the courts or real people? Are real people familiar with cause and affect given the media presentations.. I don't know.. You have to ask them.

        Was the given judicial ruling based on some sort of logical reasoning? No.. not just in my opinion; there are many that see it that way and they can tell you the exact legal reasonings. In my opinion though, the courts bases were preloaded for the game to deliver and they would have required extended hacking to get it loaded.

  • avidruntime4 hours ago
    All by design
    • Isamu4 hours ago
      Okay whose design
      • afavour4 hours ago
        The Republican Party, broadly. It's much easier to dismantle government when you've convinced voters that it is untrustworthy and incapable of success.
        • sheikhnbake4 hours ago
          Step 1: Render government services ineffective

          Step 2: Award contracts to private companies to fulfill the recently created gap in need

          Step 3: profit

          • vjvjvjvjghv3 hours ago
            In Britain that seems to be the game plan for the NHS.
        • amelius4 hours ago
          So their plan is:

              1. Destroy the government.

    2. ???

    3. Profit.
          • afavour4 hours ago
            Step 2 is privatization, preferably to your friends and donors.
            • amelius3 hours ago
              How do they intend to keep away angry people with pitchforks without a government?
              • afavour3 hours ago
                Oh, they don't want no government at all. Just to get rid of the parts that redistribute wealth downwards and/or make it more difficult for private enterprise to make profit. The police can stay, provided they stay on-side.
              • UncleOxidant3 hours ago
                They intend to keep people in a precarious position of debt and dependence such that they can't afford to pay attention because they're too busy trying to get by and afraid to lose their health insurance.
              • throw0101c3 hours ago
                > How do they intend to keep away angry people with pitchforks without a government?

                We're talking about America here, not France. :)

                • amelius3 hours ago
                  Okay, I meant angry people with guns.
                  • sheikhnbake2 hours ago
                    That's the neat part about these fascist morons. They have delusions of longevity and have convinced themselves that they'll be the despots that never get overthrown. Or they flee to Argentina, as is tradition
                    • cjbenedikt12 minutes ago
                      Has already started. Peter Thiel!
                  • yolp541 minutes ago
                    [dead]
              • vjvjvjvjghv3 hours ago
                They want very strong government. Surveillance, ICE, FBI, police all available to go after opponents. And going after fraud as long as it's committed by the little guy.
              • MisterTea3 hours ago
                What angry people with pitchforks?
          • MisterTea3 hours ago
            2. "Do whatever the fuck we want because who's gonna stop us, the government we gutted? lol"

            Duh.

          • analognoisean hour ago
            They'd rather be in control of ashes than not be in control of a functional society.
      • datsci_est_20153 hours ago
        Newt Gingrich set the standard for modern Republican obstructionism, but the idea goes further back. For example, Reagan’s “I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.” Ghastly statement in retrospect given what’s happened in the past 40 years. Imagine taking over an org and saying that you don’t think it’s capable of producing any positive outcomes for its shareholders (or stakeholders, more generally).
      • vjvjvjvjghv3 hours ago
        "The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.”
    • unrented79773 hours ago
      [dead]
  • mistrial93 hours ago
    here in the San Francisco Bay Area, about three hours from now the actual tide sea levels will be about 1.42 feet above the predicted (Federal) tidal charts. I have been under the impression that those charts are politics-free and generally very accurate. Are the applicable Federal ocean tidal charts updated right now?

    I will note that only 15 years ago, an indy report called "Adapting to Rising Tides" that shows this exact situation, was publicly attacked by several local govt agencies here, while the idea of "Climate Change" was actively attacked in the public media.

    • bix63 hours ago
      That’s due to the kelvin waves caused by El Niño. Tide forecasts use astronomical methods which do not account for something non-periodic like this. Depending on where the waves are tide might be 1-2ft higher than normal. This is partly why Newport flooded on Friday.
  • jauntywundrkind2 hours ago
    Fox News and GOP generally, imo, are still part of a Business Plot to overthrow the American government and end democracy. It's unfortunate but: being awful at governance, government, is alas extremely beneficial to them, to what they most actively want.

    They said it out loud. It's not even remotely veiled. This sounds so glonzo, so whackadoodle. But these people are engaged in the active sabotage and destruction of the state, are afraid above all of things like "socialism" which just means "government". Doing things.

    40 years since Reagan said: "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

  • tribute12293 hours ago
    [dead]